Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Mike Whitney, a 'progressive' economic observer who writes long, thoughtful, and realistic essays on the state of the economy on the website Counterpunch, concludes in his latest essay:

The US consumer, long considered an inexhaustible resource, is tapped out.Without job security and access to easy credit; consumer spending will slow,prices will fall, demand will flag and the economy will tank. There won't be arecovery, because pre-crisis levels of consumption will not return; that much iscertain. Sustainable growth requires higher wages and longer working hours;neither of which are likely anytime soon. The economy is headed for a protractedslowdown with persistent high unemployment and growing social unrest. The futureis deflation.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Okay, I'm back. Time to get on the stick here and do some serious posting.

Here's a paragraph or two from Jim Kunstler that I think is right on target, though it's unlikely to be implemented, since the American people are not in any mood to hear the truth.

What the nation -- including President Obama -- can't seem toget through its head is that the USA has entered a period of epochal economiccontraction. Instead of growth, as measured in conventional econometrics,we can only expect (in the best case) transformation to a different economywithin the limits of real contraction. The president has got to stop promisingrenewed growth. While this would affect the perceived "standard-of-living"as measured in things like shopping mall sales and vehicle miles driven, itwould not necessarily mean diminished "quality-of-life." It would meandifferent ways-of-life for a lot of people -- for instance, young adults who hadexpected lifetime employment as corporate executives but who, instead, findthemselves ten years from now working at farming. We have an awful lot to getreal about.

In circles that pass for "progressive" these days, the natives are gettingrestless. Their agitation seems pretty inchoate for the moment -- still restingon vague, poorly-defined wishes for "change." These vague promptings needto be focused on specific action that is realistic within the context ofcomprehensive contraction and transformation. A big piece of this would bethe recognition that our suburban sprawl economy is dying, and that we now haveto bend our efforts to reorganizing American life on the most fundamentalphysical terms. We have to inhabit the landscape differently, move aroundit differently, generate food out of it differently, and make things on itagain. Whatever remaining real capital there is in the system can't besquandered on cash bonuses for Wall Street employees.